28
Sep

Top 6 Questions to Ask Yourself About Online Recipes

   Posted by: Matilda   in Family Cookbook Production Advice, Family Cookbooks

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...

I’m not a big fan of hosting my personal family recipes on a website. There are a number of pitfalls in putting hundreds of hours into maintaining an online recipe book:

1. Will they be around?
What happens if the website service goes bankrupt? Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but maybe next year.

2. What do you do if the recipes vanish?
Is there a backup? I’ve heard several stories of people entering all their recipes online and they just vanish. *poof*

3. What if they become obnoxious?
It may be free now, but what about three years from now? Five? Ten? What if they suddenly start flooding you with advertisements? If you build up a huge collection of recipes online, it’ll be really hard to just walk away.

4. How likely is it that you’ll share your family recipes with your grand daughter if it’s a bookmark on some web page?
Sitting in front of a computer, even online, is an inherently isolating event. Handing somebody a printed cookbook is inherently social.
Imagine you just died. (I know it’s horrible, but play along.) Are your descendants likely to stumble into your family recipes at website XYZ under the user name GrannyCookMachine537?

5. Are you comfortable with not having control over how your family recipes will be used?
If you carefully read the license agreements to these online recipe websites, you’ll notice that even though you own the recipes, they have publishing rights. They can make their own recipe book using your recipes and not pay you a dime. Melissa A. Trainer writes about this issue here.

6. Who wants to look up a recipe on a computer when your hands are covered in butter and eggs?
I’ll start making the pot roast as soon as my computer boots up. And my internet access starts. And I log on to the website. And I do a search for the recipe I want. And I do the search again because I typed it wrong. And–oh heck, let’s just order a pizza.

As Napoleon Dynamite’s brother said, “Yes, I love technology.” But not so much that I don’t see the value of a good ol’ fashioned printed cookbook. Obviously, as the owner of a cookbook printing software company, I’m pretty biased. But I could’ve just as easily started an online recipe storage website like all the others. I didn’t.

That’s because I believe the best way to manage your family recipes is from your own computer. Off line and in control.

For more about my cookbook printing software, click here.

Making a recipe book? Check out all the recipe software and cookbook binding supplies we have at CookbookPeople.com.

My Zimbio
Top Stories
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...
This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Family Cookbook Production Advice, Family Cookbooks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

23 comments so far

TearIzUp
 1 

Awesome Post. My compliments to the author.

——————————–SIG———————————-
Salvia
Buy Salvia Divinorum

September 29th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Michelle Basye
 2 

Can you import recipes from microsoft word?

December 10th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
joe
 3 

can this cookbook backup my
recipes that I inter in the book

December 25th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
joe
 4 

can this cookbook backup my recipes that I inter in the book

    Hi Joe-
    Yes, if you mean “do my recipes get saved on my computer.” You can also back up your recipes onto an extra hard drive or cd rom if you want to. Just copy the file located at C:\Program Files\Matilda\MatildaBack.mdb to wherever you want to back up your recipes.
    Matilda
December 25th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Kathy
 5 

I have bookmarked your website because I have taken on the job of writing our family cookbook. I know that currently there is not the option of having just one recipe per page, but one of your answers indicates that this may be an option with the updated version. Can you please contact me when the udate is available for purchase? If not, I understand. Thanks, Kathy

January 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Debbie Boldt
 6 

When will the upgraded/updated version of Matilda’s cook book software be available? I am hoping for the “one recipe per page” option.
Thanks.

April 11th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Matilda
 7 

Hi, Debbie-
One recipe per page will be an option. However, it’s looking like mid-summer at the earliest. The good news is that the upgrade will be less than $15 to download.
Matilda

April 15th, 2008 at 9:52 am
carole
 8 

is there a way to arrange recipes so the entire recipe fits onto one page–meaning it does not end on one page to be continued by turning the page to get the rest of the recipe?

April 20th, 2008 at 4:53 am
Matilda
 9 

Hi, Carole-
You can decrease the font size to squeeze it all in. Otherwise, there’s just not much we can do to cram more in.
Matilda

April 21st, 2008 at 11:35 am
hella
 10 

I love all the changes that you have made to your software. It was well worth the wait. Good Job! I will linking your site on mine since you now do what I think was missing in cookbook creation. A tool that allows everything to stay on your own computer and the formats that so many people crave. My cd it the perfect compliment for asking for recipes, stories and photo and then having charts to to stay organized. We are not competitors but together give people everything they need to do a great cookbook. I am so excited to recommend your product now!!!

May 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Nancy Phillips
 11 

I notice one of the questions was about changing the margins and you said it could be done. My question is, “How?” I don’t see an edit feature or file feature (as in WORD) in this program. I’d appreciate any help you can give me on this.

June 1st, 2008 at 11:15 am
Matilda
 12 

Hi, Nancy-
Sorry, I should’ve clarified. It depends on your printer, but most printers have the ability to change margin settings.
Hit the Printer icon, then in your printer’s dialog box it probably says something about setting margins.
If your printer doesn’t support custom margins, then you won’t be able to do it though.
Matilda

June 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 am
Lindy Mitchell
 13 

I have made the book cover and back and want to use the original recipes using the cooks own handwrighting. Will I be able to scan rathar than type my recipes?

October 26th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Matilda
 14 

Hi Lindy-
Our software requires you to type the recipes in, I’m afraid.
Matilda

October 29th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Vi
 15 

Must I chose only 1 design for my recipes or can I use different designs for Cakes, one for Pies, 1 for appetizers, etc.?

November 2nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Matilda
 16 

Vi-
You can use different templates by just printing out the pages you want using each template. However, the page numbering will probably be off on the bottom of the page.
Matilda

November 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Laura
 17 

Love the software, However… I am about ready to print my book. I have been “printing” draft copies (usually to a pdf so I can review the book without using paper) but beginning today, the program duplicates each recipe, one after the other. My 62 page book of continuous recipes has turned into a 124 page book. I tried restarting my computer, but it still duplicates all the recipes. What’s up?

November 11th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Matilda
 18 

Hi Laura-
This was a peculiar bug we’ve long since fixed in the software. We can also fix it for you.
Close the software. Email the file located at C:\Program Files\Matilda\MatildaBack.mdb to support@cookbookpeople.com, and mention this blog post, and copy in there your above post. We’ll get it fixed for you in a business day or so.
Thanks for your patience!
Matilda

November 11th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Debbie Mathis
 19 

can I use with my mac computer?

December 28th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Matilda
 20 

Hi, Debbie-
I’m afraid it’s not compatible with Mac.
Matilda

December 28th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
chanie
 21 

Hi i just purchased your software & wanted to enter recipes. I see that if I type in the ingredients etc & hit enter it will go to the next line. If I pick from your listing (ex I click 2 then I click cups then flour its all on the same line. However when I want to list nex ingredients it automatically continous on the same line ie 2cups flour 2 eggs instead of 2 cups flour & under that 2 eggs etc.
How can I still use your shortcut controls but not have it look like a paragraph? chanie

January 28th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Linda
 22 

Hi:
I recently purchased your software and was wondering is there a way to back up my recipe book to another drive? Also, once I finish the book, can the entire book be made available online as an Ebook? Reason I ask, my Aunt wants a copy emailed to her as an ebook instead of printed in book form.

thank you,
Linda

March 15th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Matilda
 23 

Hi Linda-
You can make it into an Ebook. Here’s an explanation of how to organize the PDF sections into one simple PDF file/ebook:
http://forum.cookbookpeople.com/index.php?topic=548.0
You can copy the data file from one file to another. It’s currently located at C:\Program Files\Matilda\MatildaBack.mdb. Just move that file to the same location on a new computer and off you go.
Matilda

March 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

Leave a reply

Name (*)
Mail (will not be published) (*)
URI
Comment